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The Pop Life

By Neil Strauss

Published: November 2, 1994

Snoop Doggy Dogg

Snoop Doggy Dogg, the platinum-selling gangster rapper and defendant in a murder case, can now add film industry pariah to his list of accomplishments. His record label, Death Row/Interscope, has been having a hard time finding a theater that will allow it to lease a screen for a public showing of "Murder Was the Case," an 18-minute film based on the Snoop Doggy Dogg song of the same name and directed by the music producer and rapper Dr. Dre. Snoop Doggy Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, says "Murder Was the Case" is not about the August 1993 shooting death of Philip Waldemariam in Los Angeles, for which he, McKinley Lee and Sean Smith are to be tried on Jan. 13.

Though the soundtrack for the short film went to No. 1 on the pop charts last week -- once again proving rap's appeal to audiences of all races and classes -- theater owners are worried about a repeat of the violence in some movie houses when "Boyz N the Hood" and "New Jack City" had their premieres, said an executive who is helping to distribute "Murder Was the Case" for Death Row/Interscope.

Two Los Angeles theater chains declined to lease their screening rooms. Alan Stokes, the marketing director for Metropolitan Theaters, one of the chains, which was considering screening the film at its 2,000-seat State Theater in downtown Los Angeles, said he was "surprised and impressed" with the quality of the film, which "is right out there with anything that comes out of Hollywood, and it is less violent than some of those films."

"But when Interscope changed it from an invitation-only premiere to a public screening where anybody could buy a ticket at a record store, that changed the scope of our concerns and the type of audience that would be attending," Mr. Stokes said. "The idea of 2,000 fanatic Snoop Doggy Dogg fans in the theater and 2,000 waiting outside was something we were nervous about."

After discussing arrangements for metal detectors and a security force with Interscope, Mr. Stokes encouraged the company to take the film to another chain that was interested. That chain, Manns theaters, ended up not showing it, and the film wound up at the Variety Arts Theater in Los Angeles, where it is to have its premiere tomorrow. When asked about the film, Dr. J. Sehdeva, who books and rents the theater, said he was unaware what the film was about.

In New York, the film is to have its premiere on Nov. 18; a theater has not yet been found. Ry Cooder's World Music

Holding steady but quietly at No. 1 on Billboard's world-music album charts for 29 weeks, breaking the previous record for longevity by five weeks, is "Talking Timbuktu" (Hannibal/Rykodisc). This album is an unusual collaboration between Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure, a Malian guitarist who plays his own form of the blues.

Mr. Cooder began his career in the late 1960's, collaborating with the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart and Randy Newman; he worked with the Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence and the Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez in the 70's and, more recently, expanded his borders to work with the Okinawan rock musician Shoukichi Kina, the Indian classical musician V. M. Bhatt and Tuvan throat singers from Siberia. In a rare interview, he talked about his recent collaborations.

"My experience has taught me one thing," said Mr. Cooder by telephone from his home in California. "Musicians are all pretty much alike. We can understand one another if we let the music be the key to everything and just respect each other, pay attention, act with an open heart and mind and seek some kind of middle ground. A guy like Ali Farka Toure has a world vision. He knows that Africa is the source of all the music that we like, and he's working from the powerful position of being endowed with this heritage and having it at his fingertips."

Mr. Cooder and Mr. Toure canceled a planned tour last summer because Mr. Toure had to help protect his family from attacks by the Tuareg nomads, who are at war with the Malian Government. "If you want to mess around with world music," Mr. Cooder said, "then you have to stand still for some of these third-world issues, too. It's like the blues. If you wanted to hang out with the old blues players, then you had to encounter their life, too."

Mr. Cooder talked casually and naturally, switching the topic from the roots of Japanese lounge music to the pervasive influence of Bob Marley as if all were of one and the same mettle. "All through Asia and Africa, you have a kind of hybrid pop-musical stew going on," he said. "And it's all loosely based on the guitar-band concept, which, of course, works wherever you are."

Unlike David Byrne, Peter Gabriel and other Western pop musicians-cum-ethnomusicologists, Mr. Cooder seemed less concerned with creating a new record for the pop-music market than experiencing a new kind of jam session. "I grew up in the folk era, and the main thing then was interacting," he said. "That's how I learned music, and most of the opportunities I've created for myself just have to do with being curious. To stand up onstage with people and play music when you have no idea what they're going to do next, it's just a rush. It's like surfing; you just sort of try and hang in there." Woodstock '94 Refunds

Yesterday was the deadline for Woodstock '94 ticket holders who were turned away from the overcrowded festival to apply for refunds. A festival spokeswoman said that fewer than a thousand requests had been received.

Judging the veracity of these claims may be hard because many people did not have their tickets checked at the gates. Applicants for reimbursement must also submit an unused parking pass.

The spokeswoman would not say how many refunds had been given, but those who wanted refunds were required to tackle a 4-page, 23-part form that among other things asked for the license plate of the car, the make, the owner, the driver at the festival, the names and telephone numbers of everyone who was in it and the name of the attendant who turned the car away. The form, described as a sworn affidavit, also had to be notarized.